Monthly Archives: January 2010

My year started off pretty well. The vacations finished with me feeling excited, but a little nervous about the year coming up. Excited because I love teaching, nervous because the way I do stuff is going through a bit of a revolution (oops – sorry..you already know about that : ) )

The Staff Development Day went well – the usual mandatory stuff – School Certificate results, HSC results, the great news about the ATAR scores some of our kids got and where they’ll be next year (Mate!! Johnny C was accepted into Teaching…who would have thought he’d pick that…maybe it was one of us that changed his mind..we’ll never know unless we ask him I guess, because there’s no data on those sorts of events) and growth and decline data (the sort of stuff we see every year and put plans into place for). I even did the mandatory drug thing, put a funny video about spiders on drugs in (made everybody laugh, but they knew what it was about).

Then the kids came in the next few days. The big ones and little ones first, then everyone else. There was this quiet excitement around the joint – it was the right way to start.

HEY..one question.. what was the idea behind the big surprise – MySchool? I mean I sort of knew it was coming, but not Term 1 Week 1 when my mind was on getting set for the year…OHH!…I get it..it was some sort of a cunning plan to get us thinking, like the cunning plans that fella Baldrick has. I’ll have to call you Baldrick from now on (LOL), and I guess that makes Kev our Blackadder (is that good or bad ..haha)

I’ll give you one thing though, MySchool certainly got us talking. Everyone was a bit quiet at school when we saw the website, but I guess we’ll just take it in our stride and use it the way it was meant to be used. I’m starting a list of the questions I’ve got for you on what we are supposed to make of our school information (I’ll get that to you soon), but one interesting thing I noticed was that the local Grammar school (who charge a bit for fees I’ve heard) actually had a socio economic score on par with us. That must explain why their Federal funding is higher than others (?)

Yeah, like I said MySchool certainly got us talking. I follow a few educators on Twitter (I guess most of them would consider themselves the more intellectual and engaged members in the job) and even they couldn’t come to any consensus on what MySchool was going to mean. One of them even used it as a way of comparing a school where their kids went, and with a school that performed well (as reported in the papers as being “the sixth best primary school in the state”). That’s a ranking system isn’t it..oh hang on..we’re not meant to do that are we? I guess if teachers do it then it’s going to be hard for parents, politicians, the papers, the tele, and all the school promotion teams not to do it too? Oh well, we’ll just take that in our stride and use it the way it was meant to be used.

I’ve got to admit, I’ve thought about little else this week, which is saying something considering I’ve got the whole year ahead of me. I’ve got to lock in my Outdoor Recreation excursions program, where I provide the kids with experiences that build (I hope) self management, self confidence, cooperation, communication, resilience and empathy (to name a few). Unfortunately there’s no way of telling if these things will influence our MySchool scores, and I feel a bit guilty about taking the Year 9’s away from school when they could be practising their exam skills. I feel sorry for the poor Maths and English teachers actually, because I’ve got a feeling they are going to cop it from parents when we start talking about improving literacy and numeracy. You said it yourself, about how if there was a problem with Maths go and see the Principal about how Maths is done at the school. I try to help with programmed literacy and numeracy in PDHPE, but our parents probably wouldn’t know that.

Hey, that brings me to my idea. You know how on the school information page in MySchool you’ve put all those coloured boxes (pink means bad, green means good…well that’s what one of our parents told me anyway)? Why don’t you give the majority of this years Federal funding to the schools that got pink boxes? The green box schools are doing OK obviously, and the pinkies need the help. Maybe that’s too simple…I don’t know…just a thought.

Anyway, you look after yourself – I know you’ve got an election coming up soon….oh, I get it.. MySchool is another part of your cunning plan. Good old Baldrick! (HaHa)

With school resuming in under a week, I’m going to go against all the advice you hear from the experts and make some resolutions and predictions for the coming year. Some will be goals based on dreams that I have for my own satisfaction, others will be the result of expectations from above (specifically my Principal (is there anyone higher?).

But first, it’s always good to see where you’ve come from, in order to see where you can go to.

Starting at the end

Permit me a short reflection on 2009. As a self confessed tech fan, even I was happy when the formal school year ended and I got a break from the technology tsunami that hit. I found the introduction of the DERvices and all it’s associated PD sessions disorienting at times. I was excited on one hand, nervous at the implications, frustrated at the process and exhausted by the possibilities. I read too much, saved too many bookmarks and tags on Delicious (just in case they come in use), Twittered away to all hours and even started a blog (the last bastion of self aggrandisers, I used to think).

The student reaction to the DERvices was, to be honest, not what I’d imagined. Instead of walking together into a golden age of learning possibilities, I was somewhat saddened to hear complaints about what the laptops couldn’t do, rather than overwhelming excitement about the possibilities to come. A generational quirk…who knows?

My year ended a bit of a jumbled mess.

Striding confidently into the future

I wrote a list (using a pen and paper) of the things I wanted to have a crack at in 2010. Here they are (in no particular order):

Moodle – I have a period allowance to develop a Moodle users group at school, for my staff and for (I suspect) our partner schools as well. I intend to become a power Moodler.

Use technology in an authentic way to deliver aspects of the PE curriculum- pedometers and then graphing with Google docs, Outdoor Recreation and GPS receivers, Web 2.0 tools like Glogster, Voicethread and a shared online space, TaLE laptop wraps to create rich tasks, ePortfolios to present work and to display at Parent Teacher nights, video and audio to enhance skill acquisition. I resolve to immerse my staff in the world on Web2.0

Create authentic assessment tasks that reflect the use of PE skills and knowledge in the real world. My faculty assessment tasks will be relevant,engaging and authentic.

Use mobile phones in class. My resolution is self explanatory

Use SMS polling in class. Ditto

Go paperless in as much as I, and the “system”, can allow. I resolve to reduce the number of binders on my desk

I’d like to stick using Wii in there as well, but that might be biting off just a little too much.

My year has started as a bit of a jumbled mess.

Some of these are taken as givens – for instance, my work with Moodle. Clear cut, working toward concrete goals. And I think I’ve got a good handle on the paperless concept. I think I’ll employ the “seeking forgiveness is easier than seeking permission” strategy here. These two projects share a common theme – I will be able to run my own race, march to my own drum, draw up my own game plays.

Some will be personal projects that require opportunity and time to prepare the students to become skilled in their use. I don’t want to drown myself in half completed projects though. Time to be selective…hmmmmm.

The others are faculty projects and involve those slippery and somewhat precarious notions of collaboration and collegiality. Shared vision, delegation, acceptable standards of work, risk taking and promoting personal growth in “experienced” staff….these will be my mantra.

Ideally, the rest of my blogging in 2010 will be joyous accounts of the journey for each/most/some of these projects – our successes, the back slapping camaraderie, the light bulb popping moments that signify advances in both our professional and personal growth.